1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to methods and apparatuses for synthesizing speech and providing the synthesized speech to users.
2. Description of the Related Art
Hereto, various types of devices have included a function for synthesizing speech and providing the synthesized speech to users. There are some types of speech synthesis, for example, recorded-speech synthesis that plays back speech recorded in advance and text to speech synthesis that converts text data into speech.
In devices including the speech-synthesizing function described above, more than one type of speech message needs to be simultaneously played back in some cases. For example, in a multifunction device including facsimile and copying functions, when facsimile transmission and a copying operation are simultaneously performed, transmission completion and a paper jam may simultaneously occur. In this case, the following two speech messages may need to be simultaneously output: “Transmission completed” and “Paper jam has occurred”.
When more than one speech message is simultaneously synthesized and output, as described above, the clearness of the speech is impaired, thereby impairing operational feeling of users. Thus, speech synthesis has been hereto performed in order of priority, as disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 5-300106. In this arrangement, priorities are assigned to the speech messages, and speech synthesis is performed with a higher priority for a message having a higher priority to output the synthesized speech. That is to say, speech synthesis may be first performed for a message having a higher priority.
In the known method described above, to urgently perform speech output having a higher priority, a control operation may be performed so as to suspend a current speech output having a lower priority by interrupting it and to perform speech output of a message having a higher priority, thereby satisfying detailed user needs. In general, the speech output by speech synthesis can be suspended. Thus, the arrangement described above may be achieved by suspending a speech output having a lower priority, performing speech output having a higher priority, and restarting the speech output having the lower priority. However, depending on the content of the speech message, such an arrangement may confuse users by restarting the speech output from the suspended point. Thus, resumption of the interrupted speech output also needs to be carefully controlled.